1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to passing information between catalogs in a computer operating system and more particularly relates to an apparatus and method for moving information associated with data sets between catalogs in a computer operating system without having to search memory storage or external storage for the location of data-specific information.
2. Description of the Related Art
The majority of businesses in the world today use computers and computer operating systems to store and manage information. The information stored in computer operating systems is typically organized into catalogs. Users may want to pass information from one catalog to another for several reasons. For example, the user might want to assign each division within a company its own catalog. Thus, the company would need to pass information associated with the division that is stored in the company catalog into a corresponding division catalog. Many users also set up their catalogs for specific recoverability in the event that information becomes lost or corrupted. Uncorrupted data would need to be transferred into the reformatted catalog to replace the corrupted data. It is important to many users that information can be passed or moved between catalogs quickly and easily.
Catalogs are utilized to organize and locate data sets. A catalog in essence is a data set that contains information required to locate other data sets. A data set is often the fundamental unit of data storage and retrieval and typically consists of a collection of data in one of several prescribed arrangements. These arrangements are described by control information to which the computer operating system has access. A data set is a collection of logically related data records stored on one external storage volume or a set of volumes. A data set can be, for example, a source program, a library of macros, or a file of data records used by a processing program. A catalog does not have to be on the same volumes as the data sets the catalog describes. A catalog can refer to hundreds or thousands of data sets spread across many volumes.
Catalogs are sometimes structured in an integrated catalog facility (ICF). An ICF catalog may include two components. One component contains non-data-specific information, or the logical description, of a data set. The other component contains data-specific information, or the physical description, of a data set. Catalogs allow users to find and access a data set by name without knowing the exact location of the data set in memory storage. By cataloging data sets, users do not need to know about the storage setup.
FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic block diagram of a typical prior art apparatus 100 to pass or move information between catalogs in a computer system. A catalog interface 101 may include a utility component 102 and a catalog component 106.
The catalog interface 101 may be contained within a computer operating system 104 and may interface with memory containing one or more the volumes 114, 116. The memory 112 may be in the form of external storage 112. There is may be one or more processors 110 driving the computer operating system 104 and executing the catalog interface 101.
The volumes 114, 116 can include an ICF catalog 118, a volume table of contents (VTOC) 120, and a plurality of data sets 122. The ICF catalog, as mentioned above, contains non-data-specific information (“NDS Info”) 124 and data-specific information (“DS Info”) 126. The VTOC 120 may list the data sets that reside on its volume, along with information about the location and size of each data set, and other data set attributes.
The search module 108 in the prior art catalog interface 101 searches the volumes 114, 116 in external storage to find the data-specific information associated with the data set to be passed or moved between catalogs so that the information can be updated.
Referring now to FIG. 2, the catalog interface 101 may execute steps 200 to pass or move information between catalogs. The catalog interface 101 identifies 204 a data set in a first catalog to be passed to a second catalog. The catalog interface 101 receives 206 information attributes from the first catalog and uses those attributes to define 208 non-data-specific information into a second catalog.
One problem with prior art apparatuses and methods, however, is that there is no pointer available to point to the remainder of the information that needs to be passed. Thus, the prior art requires that at the time the non-data-specific information is defined into the second catalog, a sequential search 210 of the data-specific information on the volumes in the external storage 112 must be performed to locate any data-specific-information associated with the data set being passed. Then, the associated data-specific information, found by the search, is updated to reflect the name of the second catalog instead of the name of the first catalog. When a substantial volume of information is being passed between catalogs, the time taken for the sequential search can be very significant.
Another problem with prior art apparatuses and methods is that the search required to locate the data-specific information is serialized against other systems. This potentially prevents updates to the data-specific information associated with other data sets on the volumes being searched.
Twenty-five years ago, the volume of information stored in catalogs was small and manageable. However, the volume of information needed to be stored in today's society is growing larger and larger. Prior art apparatuses and methods do not efficiently handle data transfer in today's world. Prior art processes that pass information between catalogs are slowed down immensely by the amount of data transferred today. Customers desire systems with improved performance.
From the foregoing discussion, it should be apparent that a need exists for an apparatus and method that improves the performance in the process of passing information between catalogs in a computer operating system. It would be an advancement in the art to provide such an apparatus and method that would require fewer resources to complete a transfer of information. It would be a further advancement in the art to provide such an apparatus and method that could pass information between catalogs in a more timely fashion, as time is an increasingly more expensive commodity in today's high-paced world. Such an apparatus and method is disclosed and claimed herein.